Language watchdog chastises Air Canada

Air Canada needs to do more to ensure it is providing service in English and French, says Canada's language watchdog.

Photograph by: Tyler Anderson
, National Post

OTTAWA — Air Canada must show "solid leadership" and make a "sincere commitment" to honour its obligations to customers in both of Canada's official languages, says a new report from the federal language watchdog.

In a stinging audit released Monday, Graham Fraser, commissioner of official languages, said the airline must adopt 12 recommendations to address concerns and respect federal language legislation.

"Unfortunately, the audit shows significant shortcomings in the knowledge managers and agents have of Air Canada's obligations with respect to the active offer and delivery of bilingual services," Fraser's audit says.

"There are also language training and maintenance of skill courses that Air Canada and Jazz employees can take; however, these appear to be insufficient to meet the needs of the carrier."

In July, a judge ordered Air Canada to pay an Ottawa couple $12,000 and apologize for not serving them in French during a 2009 trip between Ottawa and the United States.

An Air Canada official said at the time the airline took its language responsibilities seriously, and was constantly working to offer customers service in the official language of their choice.

Air Canada spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur reiterated those comments Monday, noting that the airline had worked closely with Fraser and prepared an action plan in response to his audit by designating a senior executive to follow up on concerns and be accountable for performance.

"It's important for our customers (and) it's important for us," said Arthur. "We not only can offer a service in our two official languages, but we (can offer service in) nearly 60 languages, if you look at all the destinations that we serve. We do try and we have flight attendants who speak all those languages."

Air Canada, formerly a Crown corporation, has been subject to the Official Languages Act since 1969, and has retained this legal responsibility as a condition of its privatization ever since 1988. But Fraser said he was surprised to discover that employees of the airline didn't seem to understand this requires them to provide services to minority communities in the official language of their choice.

"I was surprised to discover, for example, that our interviews showed that employees thought that greeting people by saying, 'Hello, bonjour,' was something special for the Olympics," Fraser said in an interview. "So as soon as the Olympics were over, they stopped doing it."

Fraser said that the issue is also a "fundamental question of respect," and that management must meet its responsibilities.

"The federal institutions that get this right have a whole network of official language champions who are reminding people that this is how you serve Canadians and the Air Canada approach has been to put something on the Air Canada Internet site and hope that people will find it."

Air Canada flight attendants have given notice of their intent to strike as early as Wednesday. Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt has urged the two sides to reach a deal or agree to a "binding process to settle their collective agreement and avoid a work stoppage," to avoid damaging a fragile economy.

When asked about the current labour situation and negotiations, Fraser acknowledged that he also had concerns that budgetary considerations could have an impact on language services. But he warned that the law still requires the company to respect the federal language legislation that is designed to protect the rights of minority communities to be served in the official language of their choice.

The audit, which was conducted by Fraser's office between April 2010 and January of this year, noted that almost all of the language problems at the airline involved a lack of services in French.

It said Air Canada must be more proactive in establishing employee-evaluation criteria to track its performance.

"Canadians expect Air Canada to consider our two official languages as a valued asset as well as a business opportunity and an obligation," said the audit.

"The results of the audit reveal that a wind of change is required for this to happen. This institution must show solid leadership and make a sincere commitment to linguistic duality at all hierarchal levels."

The airline's pilots and flight attendants are mainly based in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

At airports with at least one million passengers per year, the airline is required to offer services in both official languages.

The audit found that only one out of four agents at such airports were bilingual.

About half of Air Canada agents were bilingual on flights that were required to offer services in both French and English, the audit said.

Air Canada operates an average of 617 flights a day, carries almost 24 million passengers annually and provides direct passenger services to 105 destinations in 42 countries on five continents, the audit noted.

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